


Groceries

by stydiapanic



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-17 10:34:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2306564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stydiapanic/pseuds/stydiapanic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Annie goes out for groceries and comes back with something a bit unexpected. And very fluffy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Groceries

The sound of a key rattling in the door alerted Jeff to Annie’s arrival before she did. “Jeff? I’m home.”

“Hey, I’m in the kitchen.”

“Hi.” She smiled at him, setting down the bags full of groceries she’d been carrying, taking care to put one particular canvas bag down gently. Jeff raised his eyebrows.

“What did you buy?”

“Oh, you know, normal food stuff.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I got a bunch of healthy stuff obviously, because that’s what you like, spinach and celery and stuff and then also, funny story-”

“Annie.”

“Yeah?”

“What is that?” The canvas bag had started moving slightly.

“Okay, listen, don’t be mad-”

“That pretty much guarantees I’m going to be mad,” Jeff interjected, covering his eyes with his hand.

“-but I may have picked up this puppy on my way home and-”

“What?!”

“Jeff I couldn’t just leave it there, it was on the side of the road all by itself, someone must have left him there and what did you want me to do, just wait until you see how cute and fluffy he is okay,” she rambled on nervously before picking up the animal from the bag, which was continuing to inch away from them along the floor.

“I’m sorry, did you just say fluffy? As in fur. As in shedding. All over my apartment. Do you know how expensive this furniture is?” He couldn’t even be mad, he was too overcome with shock. He had a sudden and quickly dismissed feeling that he should have seen this coming.  

“But look at him.” Annie was pulling a total Disney face right now. Her eyes were huge and hopeful and she looked all innocent, but Jeff knew better. He turned his attention to the dog. It was indeed very fluffy, and white, and he guessed it was a pomeranian. Great.

“Wait, you kept it in a bag? Is that even safe?”

“Probably. I mean, yeah, definitely. It’s not plastic or anything. Plus he was only in there from the time I walked in to, like, right now. It’s fine.”

“Okay.” Jeff sighed. “Annie, we can’t keep it. We have to put up flyers or something, look for it’s owner.”

“I found him on the side of the road, Jeff. He was left there on purpose. No one’s going to be looking for him.”

Jeff groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face, coming to the realization that this was an actual living being that he couldn’t just return or forget about. Especially not with Annie still looking at him like that.

“I can’t even deal with this right now. I guess he can stay for the night because it’s too late to do anything now, but tomorrow… Tomorrow I am going to do… something about this, probably.”

“Yay!” Annie squealed. “Did you hear that, Snowflake, you can stay!”

Jeff made the same face he makes every time he has to order her an appletini. “Snowflake? Seriously?”

“We can come up with more names in the morning then.”

“Pfft. Good.”

Annie smiled at him triumphantly and walked out of the kitchen.

“I mean, no, because he won’t be here long enough. We are not keeping that dog, Annie!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, Winger.”

 

\- - -

 

“Annie!” Jeff yelled in the general direction of the bathroom as he buttons up his shirt. “Can you take the dog out?”

“But I’m not dressed yet,” she called back. “Why don’t you take him?”

“He’s your dog!”

“Aw, don’t say that. He’s our dog,” she smiled wickedly at him, appearing in the doorway.

“You realize this is going to be an everyday thing, right? I live in an apartment. We don’t have a backyard, someone’s gonna have to take him out every morning.”

“Oh god, is this turning into one of those ‘an animal is a big responsibility’ speeches? Because that’s a little bit too fatherly, Jeff,” she said teasingly.

“Ha ha. I’m serious. This is like an actual thing we have to take care of.”

“i know. But hey, just think of it as practice for when we have kids,” she quipped as she disappeared back in the direction of the bathroom, the dog running after her.

“When we WHAT?!”

 

\- - -

 

“So how was everyone’s Labor Day weekend?” Annie sang as she entered the group study room, followed by Jeff.

“Pretty good,” Abed replied. “Rachel and I marathoned like half the movies in the DVD shelf and ate buttered noodles. Standard stuff.”

“Nice,” Annie smiled.

“Andre and I took the kids to Disneyland for the first time,” Shirley said, showing Annie pictures on her phone as she sat down next to Shirley.

“Aww!”

“So what did you guys do?”

Jeff looked over at Annie, who braced herself for the wave of sarcasm that was sure to follow, but before Jeff could open his mouth something barked under the table.

Jeff and Annie froze. “What was that?” Abed asked, tilting his head to the side.  

“Annie?” Jeff asked, in his all too familiar ‘you did not just do what I think you did’ tone.  

“Yes?” she squeaked.

“You didn’t.”

Her eyes went wide. “I didn’t know he was in there, I swear. He must have jumped in when I wasn’t looking,” she replied, reaching into her bag and taking out the tiny dog.

“Okay, we are returning that thing and getting a dog that can’t fit in your bag. Or any bag. Like a golden retriever. Or maybe one that’s half-wolf. That’d be kinda cool. But anyway,” he said, refocusing, “Now what? Are you just gonna walk around with it all day?”

“I- Well... maybe you could- since you have an office now, I don’t know-”

“Puppy!” Britta gasped, having just entered the room. “Oh, hello cutie,” she cooed, picking up the dog that had run over to her. “Oh my god guys, whose dog is this?”

“Annie’s,” Jeff replied bitterly.

Annie glared at him. “It’s ours, actually.”  

“Well, I love him. Yes I do, yes I do,” she said, speaking to the dog in that voice people reserve solely for small animals and babies.

“Oh god, Britta, dogs are not allowed on school property,” Dean Pelton chastised as he approached the group dressed in a tasteful 1960’s inspired outfit. “I mean, what do you think this is, a petting zoo?” He laughed.

Jeff sighed in resignation and gave Annie a look that said ‘you owe me’. “It’s not Britta’s dog, it’s mine.”

“Oh, Jeffrey,” the dean chirped in his usual upbeat manner, “Well, that’s fine then. I just came by to remind you all about the 1960’s dance next weekend here at Greendale.”

“Ah, yes, 60’s dances, where we ignore blatant social injustices so we can wear pretty outfits.”

“Don’t be such a downer, Jeffrey,” the dean placed his hand on Jeff’s chest, “It’ll be fun!” he exclaimed, and left to alert the rest of the school.

Annie leaned toward him and started talking animatedly, “So, the dance, I was thinking we could go as-” she was cut off as their dog escaped from Britta’s arms, suddenly forced his way onto Jeff’s lap, and started licking his face while the group laughed and Jeff pretended to be thoroughly disgusted.

 

\- - -  

 

About a week later, Jeff and Annie were watching TV on the couch, with Jeff sitting at one end while Annie was stretched out with her legs in his lap, the dog occupying the armchair next to Jeff’s end of the couch.

“So,” Jeff began, ruffling the dog's ears, “Now that you’ve convinced me to keep this nerd, we should probably name him. I mean, we can’t just keep referring to him as ‘dog’ forever. And since, may I remind you, you brought this animal into my apartment-”

“Our apartment.”

“-without talking to me about it first, I think I should get to name him.”

Annie pursed her lips, trying to think of any possible scenario where she could win this argument. She knew there was at least one, but she gave in anyway. “Fine,” she sighed. “So what do you wanna name him?”

“No, you have to promise first.”

“Seriously?”

“I am very serious.”

“Ugh, fine. I promise.”

“Thoraxis.”

“Excuse me?”

“I have decided to name him Thoraxis.”

“Jeffrey Tobias Winger, I will not let you name our dog after the villain in Inspector SpaceTime.”

“You promised,” Jeff reminded her.

Annie grabbed a pillow and smacked him with it. “You’re the worst.”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be funny. Just look at him. Imagine people coming up to us on the street and asking what his name is, and then you get to explain to them that our fluffy little pomeranian is named after a villainous fictional character.”

Annie now had the pillow covering her face, muffling her next words. “But I don’t even like Inspector SpaceTime,” she whined. “And neither do you.”

“Don’t tell Abed that,” Jeff joked.

Annie removed the pillow. “Fine then, I’ll just call him Thor for short. Ha.”

“How is that any better?”

“I don’t know,” Annie exclaimed, deflated. “It isn’t. It’s not fair. If you’re gonna give him an ugly name I should at least be able to get a cute nickname out of it.”

“Sorry darlin’, not this time. And stop pouting at me, I’m not falling for it.” Shit. He always fell for it. He covered his eyes with his hand. “Not happening.”

“God damn it. Come on, Jeff,” Annie tried, crawling over and sitting on Jeff’s lap. “Won’t you at least consider reconsidering?” She grinned, eyes soft, trying to look sweet and already knowing Jeff’s answer.

“Well, maybe just this once,” Jeff smirked. As it turns out, he was terrible at saying no to her. 


End file.
